Agriculture (Miscellaneous Amendments) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019

Baroness Jones of Whitchurch Excerpts

Wednesday 16th October 2019 Grand Committee

[Baroness Bakewell of Hardington Mandeville (LD)]

My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister for so clearly setting out the issues in these five statutory instruments, which make minor adjustments and corrections to previous SIs that we debated earlier in the year, as most noble Lords have said. I am delighted that we are debating all five together and not separately. I thank the Minister for his time and that of his officials in providing a briefing for these SIs.

All the SIs cover small details and technical amendments, but they are quite complicated. The reserved matter in the first SI covers areas concerning trade import of hops and agricultural processed products, and a minor amendment on the import of eggs and the whole list that the Minister gave us. The SI covers anti-competitive practices and helps to protect sugar beet growers, and milk and milk products. Although there are no policy changes and it will remove redundant legislation post Brexit, it is important to get these matters right so that we are not debating the same things fairly regularly.

I was intrigued by the subject of the import of rice. I understand that the issue is how much rice might be contained in a processed product, such a tin of rice pudding or baby food. Nutritional content on these products is extremely important, especially if they are to be consumed by children.

The second SI concerns CMO operability amendments and, as has been said, transfers functions from the EU to the devolved Administrations. The majority of issues have been carried over from March. The SI again includes eggs, but also poultry meat. Given this, can the Minister can say where poultry breeders fit specifically in the list of six consulted stakeholders that the noble Lord, Lord Jones, listed for us, since it is not immediately apparent from the list?

It is interesting that not all matters in the SI apply to Wales, which is doing its own thing, yet marketing standards are the same across all the devolved Administrations. Are the regulations being applied in Wales better than those that will pertain in the rest of the UK, or worse?

The third SI is about import and export licences and is a reserved matter. I note that changes are very minor to ensure operability after EU exit, including changes from the euro to the pound, as mentioned by the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh, and are being set and calculated on 2018 conversion rates. Will this have a negative effect should the exchange rate alter dramatically? The Rural Payments Agency will manage the process, which remains the same. Export repayments will be made only in circumstances of crisis. Can the Minister indicate examples of crisis that might qualify for payment?

The fourth and fifth SIs are similar, except that the first is reserved and the second devolved. They are all about transitional arrangements. Again, they amend existing EU SIs made in March this year but which, since we failed to leave, have to be amended because the transition dates were for a fixed two-year period relating to March. It is a very sensible alteration to move the date to relate to when an actual deal finally transpires, should one ever be negotiated. Hence the words concerning coming into force two years from Brexit date are an excellent catch-all solution.

In the fourth SI there are technical changes on products not produced here—at the moment, that is: olives, olive oil, tobacco and rice. In the last SI there are some alterations related to labelling, which I believe is for 21 months, but the import-export licences are for two years. Again, all this was debated last March and is being amended and tidied up today.

I have no substantive comments to make on any of these SIs, which I support, and I am sure there will be others shortly.

[Baroness Jones of Whitchurch (Lab)]

My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister for introducing these SIs and for the helpful briefing he organised for us beforehand. As he says, they are largely technical amendments necessary to enable retained EU law relating to the CMO, the CAP and rural affairs to operate effectively after exit day. I agree with the noble Lords who said that the wording of these five SIs is particularly complex, and we were grateful to have a prior opportunity to work through some of those complexities before debating them. Having said that, we do not find them particularly controversial, but I have a few general questions about the approach taken here, on themes that run through these five SIs but also some of those we will debate in the coming weeks.

First, a number of SIs in this group amend existing EU exit SIs that we have previously debated and approved. This includes amendments to transition periods, which are required because the original SIs set out specific dates when arrangements would cease, based on an assumption that we would leave on 29 March 2019, which, as the Minister said, clearly did not happen. These amendments update a series of those transitional arrangements so that they will commence on “exit day”, whenever that might be, and cease after a given period of time. I agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Bakewell, that this makes very good sense.

In the absence of an acceptable deal, and on the basis on the Benn Act, I am of course grateful for this change in approach so that we will not have to repeat this exercise when Article 50 is inevitably extended once more. But can the Minister explain why the original SIs, which contained specific dates when the transitional arrangements would end, spelled out that they were based on the UK leaving the EU on 29 March? Why did we not foresee that this might be a problem? Why has there not been consistency on this matter? Other EU exit SIs set out the length of the period that would commence on exit day. It is such a common-sense way to approach this that I am curious as to why we have been inconsistent in our approach.

Secondly, as the Minister described, these SIs provide for transitional arrangements to give businesses time to adjust before they must adapt to the new regulations and requirements stemming from Brexit. As he said, this includes a 21-month transition period for forms and certificates the UK will accept from third countries attesting that a fruit or vegetable product meets marketing standards requirements, during which both the new UK forms and certificates and their equivalent EU versions would be accepted. It also includes a three-month transition period for veal imports, which would have allowed the EU time to gather and submit the required notification information to the UK. That is all very well, and I understand that we have now changed those transitional arrangements, but can the Minister advise whether these new transitional arrangements have been reciprocated by the EU? If not, can he advise the Committee what impact this will have on UK businesses and how these changes have been communicated to those affected? If a mutual transition period is not agreed, what action is Defra taking to encourage a pragmatic approach to enforcement within the UK?

Thirdly, the SIs in this group amend retained EU law and domestic legislation relating to the CAP and CMO to ensure continuity and facilitate a smooth transition to a domestic regime. As we know, the powers to change and diverge from these retained measures will be set out in the agriculture Bill. The farming sector expressed frustration at the delay to the previous Bill’s progress earlier in 2019. The National Farmers’ Union said in response to the 2017-19 Agriculture Bill failing that the timetable for changing farm payments should be delayed by at least a year, to start from 2022.